The Leopard: An Inspector Harry Hole Novel

by Jo Nesbo

  Øystein burst into coarse, hearty laughter.

  “You were missing home,” Øystein said. “You wanted to dance with the Killer Queen at Ekeberg Restaurant again.”

  Harry chuckled and shook his head. In the side mirror he saw the man charging madly toward the National Theater Station. “It’s my father. He’s ill. He doesn’t have much time left.”

  “Oh, shit.” Øystein pressed the accelerator again. “Good man, too.”

  “Thank you. Thought you would want to know.”

  “ ’Course I fucking do. Have to tell my folks.”

  “So, here we are,” Øystein said, parking outside the garage and the tiny yellow timber house in Oppsal.

  “Yup,” Harry said.

  Øystein inhaled so hard the cigarette seemed to be catching fire, held the smoke down in his lungs and let it out again with a long, gurgling wheeze. Then he tilted his head slightly and flicked the ash into the ashtray. Harry experienced a sweet pain in his heart. How many times had he seen Øystein do exactly that, seen him lean to the side as though the cigarette were so heavy that he would lose balance. Head tilted. The ash on the ground in a smokers’ shed at school, in an empty beer bottle at a party they had gate-crashed, on cold, damp concrete in a bunker.

  “Life’s fucking unfair,” Øystein said. “Your father was sober, went walking on Sundays and worked as a teacher. While my father drank, worked at the Kadok factory, where everyone got asthma and weird rashes, and didn’t move an inch once he was ensconced on the sofa at home. And the guy’s as fit as a fuckin’ fiddle.”

  Harry remembered the Kadok factory. Kodak backward. The owner, from Sunnmøre, had read that Eastman had called his camera factory Kodak because it was a name that could be remembered and pronounced all over the world. But Kadok was forgotten, and it shut down several years ago.

  “All things pass,” Harry said.

  Øystein nodded as though he had been following his train of thought.

  “Call if you need anything, Harry.”

  “Yep.”

  Harry waited until he heard the wheels crunching on the gravel behind him and the car was gone before he unlocked the door and entered. He switched on the light and stood still as the door clicked shut. The smell, the silence, the light falling on the coat closet: Everything spoke to him; it was like sinking into a pool of memories. They embraced him, warmed him, made his throat constrict. He removed his coat and kicked off his shoes. Then he started to walk. From room to room. From year to year. From Mom and Dad to Sis, and then to himself. The boy’s room. The Clash poster, the one where the guitar is about to be smashed on the floor. He lay on his bed and breathed in the smell of the mattress. And then came the tears.

  21

  Snow White

  It was two minutes to eight in the evening when Mikael Bellman was walking up Karl Johans Gate, one of the world’s more modest streets. He was in the middle of the kingdom of Norway, at the midpoint of the axis. To the left, the university and knowledge; to the right, the National Theater and culture. Behind him, in the Palace Gardens, the Royal Palace, situated on high. And right in front of him: power. Three hundred paces later, at exactly eight o’clock, he mounted the stone steps to the main entrance of Stortinget. The parliament building, like most of Oslo, was not particularly big or impressive. And security was minimal. There were only two lions carved from Grorud granite standing on either side of the slope that led to the entrance.

  Bellman went up to the door, which opened noiselessly before he had a chance to push. He arrived at reception and stood looking around. A security guard appeared in front of him with a friendly but firm nod toward a Gilardoni X-ray machine. Ten seconds later it had revealed that Mikael Bellman was unarmed; there was metal in his belt, but that was all.

  Rasmus Olsen was waiting for him, leaning against the reception desk. Marit Olsen’s thin widower shook hands with Bellman and walked ahead as he automatically switched on his guide voice.

  “Stortinget, three hundred and eighty employees, a hundred and sixty-nine MPs. Built in 1866, designed by Emil Victor Langlet. A Swede, by the way. This is the hall known as Trappehallen. The stone mosaics are called Society, Else Hagen, 1950. The king’s portrait was painted …”

  They emerged into Vandrehallen, which Bellman recognized from the TV. A couple of faces, neither familiar, flitted past. Rasmus explained to him that there had just been a committee meeting, but Bellman was not listening. He was thinking that these were the corridors of power. He was disappointed. Fine to have all the gold and red, but where was the magnificence, the stateliness, that was supposed to instill awe at the feet of those who ruled? This damned humble sobriety; it was like a weakness, of which this tiny and, not so long ago, poor democracy in Northern Europe could not rid itself. Yet he had returned. If he had not been able to reach the top among the wolves of Europol, he would certainly succeed here, in competition with midgets and second-rate cops.

  “This entire room was Reichskommissar Terboven’s office during the war. No one has such a large office nowadays.”

  “What was your marriage like?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You and Marit. Did you fight?”

  “Er … no.” Rasmus Olsen looked shaken, and he started walking faster. As if to leave the policeman behind, or at least to move beyond the hearing range of others. It was only when they were sitting behind the closed office door in the group secretariat that he released his trembling breath. “Of course we had our ups and downs. Are you married, Bellman?”

  Mikael Bellman nodded.

  “Then you know what I mean.”

  “Was she unfaithful?”

  “No. I think I can count that one out.”

  Since she was so fat? Bellman felt like asking, but he dropped it. He had what he was after. The hesitation, the twitch at the corner of his eye, the almost imperceptible contraction of the pupil.

  “And you, Olsen, have you been unfaithful?”

  Same reaction. Plus a certain flush to the forehead under the receding hairline. The answer was brief and resolute. “No, in fact I haven’t.”

  Bellman angled his head. He didn’t suspect Rasmus Olsen. So why torment the man with this type of question? The answer was as simple as it was exasperating. Because he had no one else to question, no other leads to follow. He was merely taking out his frustration on this poor man.

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?” Bellman said, stifling a yawn.

  “Have you been unfaithful?”

  Bellman smiled. “My wife is too beautiful. Furthermore, we have two children. You and your wife were childless, and that encourages a little more … fun. I was talking to a source who said that you and your wife were having problems a while ago.”

  “I assume that’s the next-door neighbor. Marit talked quite a bit with her, yes. There was a jealous patch some months ago. I had recruited a young girl to the party at a union conference. That was how I met Marit, so she …”

  Rasmus Olsen’s voice disintegrated, and Bellman saw that tears were welling up in his eyes.

  “It was nothing. But Marit went to the mountains for a couple of days to think things over. Afterward everything was fine again.”

  Bellman’s phone rang. He took it out, saw the name on the display and answered with a curt “Yes.” And felt his pulse and fury increase as he listened to the voice.

  “Rope?” he repeated. “Lyseren? That’s … Ytre Enebakk? Thanks.”

  He stuffed the phone in his coat pocket. “I have to go, Olsen. Thank you for your time.”

  On his way out Bellman briefly stopped and looked around the room Terboven, the German Nazi, had occupied.

  …

  It was one o’clock in the morning and Harry was sitting in the living room listening to Martha Wainwright singing “Far Away”: “Whatever remains is yet to be found.”

  He was exhausted. In front of him on the coffee table was his cell phone, the lighter and the silver foil
containing the brown clump. He hadn’t touched it. But he had to sleep soon, find a rhythm, have a break. In his hand he was holding a photo of Rakel. Blue dress. He closed his eyes. Smelled her scent. Heard her voice. “Look!” Her hand exerted a light squeeze. The water around them was black and deep, and she floated, white, soundless, weightless on the surface. The wind raised her veil and showed the white feathers beneath. Her long, slim neck formed a question mark. Where? She stepped ashore, a black iron skeleton with chafing, wailing wheels. She entered the house and vanished from sight. And reappeared on the first floor. She had a noose around her neck and there was a man by her side wearing a black suit with a white flower in his lapel. In front, with his back to them, stood a priest in a white cloak. He was reading slowly. Then he turned. His face and hands were white. Made of snow.

  Harry awoke with a start.

  Blinked in the dark. Sound. But not Martha Wainwright. Harry grabbed the luminous, vibrating phone on the coffee table.

  “Yes,” he said with a voice like sludge.

  “I’ve got it.”

  He sat up. “You’ve got what?”

  “The link. And there aren’t three dead. There are four.”

  22

  Search Engine

  “First of all, I tried the three names you gave me,” said Katrine Bratt. “Borgny Stem-Myhre, Charlotte Lolles and Marit Olsen. But the search didn’t produce anything sensible. So I put in all the missing persons in Norway over the last twelve months as well. And then I had something to work with.”

  “Wait,” Harry said. He was wide awake now. “Where the hell did you get the missing persons from?”

  “Intranet at Missing Persons Unit, Oslo Police District. What did you think?”

  Harry groaned, and Katrine went on.

  “There was one name that in fact linked the other three. Are you ready?”

  “Well …?”

  “The missing woman is named Adele Vetlesen, twenty-three years old, living in Drammen. She was reported missing by her partner in November. A connection appeared on the Norwegian State Railway ticketing system. On the seventh of November Adele Vetlesen booked a train ticket online from Drammen to Ustaoset. The same day Borgny Stem-Myhre bought a train ticket from Kongsberg to the same place.”

  “Ustaoset’s not exactly the center of the universe,” Harry said.

  “It’s not a place—it’s a chunk of mountain. Where Bergen families have built their mountain cabins with old money and the Tourist Association has built cabins on the peaks, so that Norwegians can preserve Amundsen and Nansen’s heritage and trudge from cabin to cabin with skis on their feet, fifty pounds on their backs and a taste of mortal fear in the hinterland of the mind. Adds spice to life, you know.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been there.”

  “My ex-husband’s family has a cabin in the mountains. They’re so rich and revered that they have neither electricity nor running water. Only social climbers have a sauna and a Jacuzzi.”

  “The other connections?”

  “There wasn’t a train ticket in the name of Marit Olsen. However, a payment was registered on the cash dispenser in the restaurant car on the corresponding train the day before. At two-thirteen p.m. According to the railway timetable that would be somewhere between Ål and Geilo, in other words before Ustaoset.”

  “Less convincing,” Harry said. “The train goes right through to Bergen. Perhaps she was going there.”

  “Do you think …?” Katrine Bratt started, then faltered, waited and went on in hushed tones. “You think I’m stupid? The hotel at Ustaoset booked an overnight stay in a double room for one Rasmus Olsen, who, according to the Civil Registration System, resides at the same address as Marit Olsen. So I assumed that—”

  “Yes, that’s her husband. Why are you whispering?”

  “Because the night porter just walked past, OK? Listen, we’ve placed two murder victims and one missing person in Ustaoset on the same day. What do you think?”

  “Well, it’s a significant coincidence, but we can’t exclude the possibility that it’s pure chance.”

  “Agreed. So here’s the rest. I searched for Charlotte Lolles plus Ustaoset, but didn’t get a hit. So I concentrated on the date to see where Charlotte Lolles might have been when the other three were in Ustaoset. Two days before, Charlotte had paid for diesel at a gas station outside Hønefoss.”

  “That’s a long way from Ustaoset.”

  “But it’s in the right direction from Oslo. I tried to find a car registered in her name or a possible partner’s. If they have an AutoPASS and have driven through several toll booths you can follow their movements.”

  “Mm.”

  “The problem is that she had neither a car nor a live-in partner, not officially, anyway.”

  “She had a boyfriend.”

  “It’s possible. But the search engine found a car in a EuroPark garage in Geilo, paid for by an Iska Peller.”

  “That’s just a mile or so away from Ustaoset. But who’s … er, Iska Peller?”

  “According to the credit card info she’s a resident of Bristol, Sydney, Australia. The point is that she scores high on a relational search with Charlotte Lolles.”

  “Relational search?”

  “It works like this, OK. Based on the last few years, names come up for people paying with a card at the same restaurant at the same time, which suggests that they have eaten together and split the bill. Or for people who are members of the same gym with matching enrollment dates or have plane seats next to each other more than once. You get the picture.”

  “I get the picture,” Harry repeated, copying her Bergensian intonation. “And I’m sure you’ve checked out the make of car and whether it uses—”

  “Yes, I have, and it uses diesel,” Katrine answered sharply. “Do you want to hear the rest or not?”

  “By all means.”

  “You can’t prebook beds in these self-service Tourist Association cabins. If all the beds are taken when you arrive, you just have to bed down on the floor, on a mattress or in a sleeping bag with your own mat. It costs only a hundred and seventy a night, and you can either put cash into a box at the cabin or leave an envelope with authorization to charge your account.”

  “In other words, you can’t see who has been in which cabins and when?”

  “Not if they pay cash. But if they’ve left an authorization, afterward there would be a transaction on their account between them and the Tourist Association, mentioning the cabin used and the date the payment was for.”

  “I seem to remember it’s a pain searching through bank transactions.”

  “Not if the engine is given the right criteria by a sharp human brain.”

  “Which is the case, I take it?”

  “That’s the general idea. Iska Peller’s account was charged for two beds at four of the Tourist Association cabins, each a day’s hike from the next.”

  “A four-day skiing trip.”

  “Yes. And they stayed at the last one, the Håvass cabin, on the seventh of November. It’s only half a day’s walk from Ustaoset.”

  “Interesting.”

  “What’s really interesting is that there are two other accounts that were charged for overnight stays at the Håvass cabin on the seventh of November. Guess whose?”

  “Well, it’ll hardly be Marit Olsen’s or Borgny Stem-Myhre’s since I assume Kripos would have found out that two of the murder victims had recently stayed at the same place the same night. So it must be the missing girl’s. What was her name?”

  “Adele Vetlesen. And you’re right. She paid for two people, but there’s no way of knowing who the other person was.”

  “Who’s the other person who paid with an authorization slip?”

  “Not so interesting. From Stavanger.”

  Nevertheless Harry picked up a pen and noted the name and address of the individual concerned and also of Iska Peller in Sydney. “Sounds like you’re good at search engines,” he said.

&nbs
p; “Yep,” she said. “It’s like flying an old bomber. A little rusty and slow to get going, but when you’re in the air … my goodness. What do you think of the results?”

  Harry pondered.

  “What you’ve done,” he said, “is to locate one missing woman and a woman who presumably has nothing to do with the case at the same place at the same time. In itself, nothing to shout about. But you’ve made it more likely that one of the murder victims—Charlotte Lolles—was with her. And you’ve located two of the murder victims—Borgny Stem-Myhre and Marit Olsen—in the immediate vicinity of Ustaoset. So …”

  “So?”

  “So, my congratulations. You’ve kept your part of the bargain. Now, as for mine …”

  “Save your breath and wipe that grin off your face. I didn’t mean it. I’m of unsound mind—didn’t you realize?”

  She smacked down the receiver.

  23

  Passenger

  She was alone on the bus. Stine rested her forehead against the window so that she wouldn’t see her reflection. Stared out into the deserted, pitch-black bus station. Hoping someone would come. Hoping no one would come.

  He had been sitting by a window in Krabbe with a beer in front of him, staring at her, motionless. Woolen hat, blond hair and those wild blue eyes. His eyes laughed, penetrated, implored, called her name. In the end she had told Mathilde that she wanted to go home. But Mathilde had just started a conversation with an American oil guy and wanted to stay a little longer. So Stine had grabbed her coat, run from Krabbe to the bus station and gotten on a bus to Våland.

  She looked at the red numbers on the digital clock above the driver. Hoping the doors would shut and the bus would start moving. One minute left.

  She didn’t raise her eyes, not even when she heard the running footsteps, heard the breathless voice request a ticket from the driver at the front, nor when he sat down on the seat beside her.